The Nashville Predators have agreed to a seven-year, $31.5 million contract with forward Martin Erat. Erat was due to become a restricted free agent.

What will Plekanec fetch when he'll become a pending RFA?

Erat is getting an average of 4.5 M$/year for 7 years after his best year with (23G 34A 57Pts) compared to Plekanec's best year (29G 40A 69Pts). If I'm Plekanec's agent, I would probably use this contract as a basis for negotiations. IMO, he'll probably fetch around 5M$/year if he's still the #1 center at the end of next season. Looking at the Habs roster, you have Andrei Kostitsyn, Josh Gorges, Ryan O'byrne, Halak and Maxim Lapierre who need to be signed this off-season (Andrei being the main guy who's going to get a substantial raise). Then for the following off-season, you have Plekanec, Higgins, Komisarek who are probably going to get a substantial raise and after that they have to make a decision on Koivu and Kovalev.

when a guy like erat can make 4+ mil, it makes trevor timmins that much more valuable. You cant keep a ton of proven talent around for too long, hence that youth pipeline always needs to be squirting out talent all the time.

That's true, but looking at kachino82's list of players. Most of those guys are the best players on their team. So even without RFA's being poached, their salaries would be sky high.

I don't really don't know. With no demand market pressure on the price, my guess is it might be significantly lower. I think teams are locking players long term for fear of losing them, more than anything. The other view is that they are "Wanging" it and trying to beat inflation, I just feel that that is just too risky a game...save with the sure fire players (I'm talking Ovechkin like sure fire).

Let's take Komi for example, if there was no realistic way he could leave the Habs for another 4-5 years or so...why would the Habs offer him big money in his next contract? They would wait for his next one.

With RFA poaching and UFA age brought down, teams start to want to lock up their young guns quick and for long.

I think this is all new CBA related and turning out to be a great thing for the players.

No crap, huh? Remember all of the complaints about it that leaked out when it happened? Other sports union leaders trashed it because of the linkage, but the key thing now is the salary floor as apposed to the cap, everybody has to spend a minimum at least and that pushed salaries higher than people thought of.

Erat's numbers the last 4 years are 49, 49, 57 and 57 points. The passed two years he missed 12 and 6 games respectively.
Ribeiro is getting 5 million over the next 5 seasons and he's putting up more points than Plekanec.
I have no idea how GMs and agents come to these kinds of decisions, but Gainey hasn't really shown a tendency of signing players to long-term deals unless he really believes they are worth the money. Maybe he learned from the Theodore contract? I do think agents like to compare one players worth to anothers, but I think Gainey tries to keep it within the team. Ie: comparing Kovalev to Koivu. Markov to Hamrlik.
I never really expected Pleks to get a contract worth more than Koivu's and still don't, but maybe that is where salaries are going. I hope Gainey will get him cheaper.

Which you didn't need to do so soon when no RFA poaching happened though.

In the no salary cap system, you don't really need to lock your good young players long term when they're pending RFA because you can match whatever amount of money the other team is throwing at them unless you have budget constraints. You can pay them depending on their production and don't have to mainly focus on their potential because if they reach it, you can pay them whatever they want because there a no cap. Again, if you have budget constraints, you won't be able to do that.

In the salary cap system, you (have/might have) to lock your good young players before they become RFA because if someones (like Kevin Lowe) throws an incredible offer sheet to your player, first you have to decide if there's cap space for you to match the offer. Second, if there's cap space, what will be the impact of that salary on your team for the following years. When you lock a good young players, you're either paying for the player's potential (Brown, Michalek, Getzlaf... all were signed either at the beginning of their 3rd year or in the off-season of their 2nd year) or for his current high production (Crosby, Ovechkin ... already superstars when they signed their extension.)

Take the example of Dustin Brown. Last October, he signed a 6 years/ 18.5 M$ contract extension which is a 3.175 M$ cap hit for the following 6 years. Last season, for his second year, he had 17G 29A for 46Pts while being on top of the NHL for total hits. I assume at that time, the L.A. Kings took the decision to re-sign him at that amount based on the potential they've assessed to Brown. This season, he has 33G 27A 60Pts and is still a leader for total hits in the NHL. Imagine Brown potential production in 6 years while still getting paid 3.5 M$. Big bargain eh? Obviously a lot of things can happen to the player: he can get complacent or he can get a serious injury and never reach his potential but the L.A. Kings are willing to take these risks. So as other teams who are locking their young players.

Let's take the case of Andrei Kostitsyn since he's our big pending RFA. Some will say that the Habs should sign him for 2-3 years because they're not sure if he's the real deal or they feel he needs to prove that he's worthy of a long term contract. Some others will say that the Habs should lock him up "a la Dustin Brown". Both are acceptable.

For instance, the Canadiens sign him for 2-3 years and he becomes a star player at the end of that contract. In that case, he's going to get a him huge raise for his next contract if the Canadiens wants to keep him. Again he's going to be a pending RFA (2nd contract, younger than 27 years old). Obviously, he could also regress at the end of that contract and therefore, the Canadiens would had taken the right decision for signing him short-term.

Let's take the other case where you give him a contract a "la Dustin Brown". He gets paid 3M$/year for the following 6 years. Yeah 3M$ after 1 good season is pretty high but imagine if he reaches a high level of production after just 2 years which is very possible with more responsibilities/ice time/experience. Then, for the following 4 years, you have a good/star player making 3M$/year and you don't have to worry about his salary (unless he holdouts). Imagine Andrei Kostitsyn in year 6 reaching his full potential while only getting paid 3M$.

Again like I mentioned before, there are risks that he can get complacent or get seriously injured and never reach his potential. Big question is ... Are the Habs willing to take these risks?

Again like I mentioned before, there are risks that he can get complacent or get serious injured and never reach his potential. Big question is ... Are the Habs willing to take these risks?

Thanks for your post.

Personally, I would definately pay less now and pay fair market value when I have to. Implicit in this is that I don't think the risk (ie. having 4M$ tied up for 6 yrs in an underachiever or injured player) is worth the potential gain (money saved in end years - money saved now...if that number is positive). To me the variable is probability of losing a player. I would pay an extra amount to ensure that my key young player will not leave via UFA (those years are worth more because of market pressure). Now, I feel there is also a real risk he might leave as an RFA and hence have to pay more for those years (to compensate for the potential loss the player takes by signing away RFA years).

Basically, I think we agree on the concept. To me the owners gained a revenu linked cap and the players gained earlier free agency. That was the trade off. With recent RFA poaching and the ever higher cap, I feel the players may be better off than before. That the "consolation price" (younger free agency) has been quite to their favour.